How Do Americans See Muslims?

38 percent of Americans in 2006 said they would never vote for a
Muslim for president, just about the number who said they would never
vote for a gay person. In December of 2004, Cornell released a survey
showing that half of Americans consciously told a pollster that they
would favor a curtailment of civil rights for Muslims. About 40 percent
of Republicans had explicitly anti-Muslim views in the survey.

What's
fascinating -- and disturbing -- about prejudice against Muslims is
that it is not driven by the same factors that have marginalized
immigrants and minorities in the past. There are no economic incentives
to push Muslims to the outside; there is an instinctive mistrust of
Islam within evangelical Christianity and a very persistent post 9/11
ideological gulf between average and elite Americans. As of 2010, 43
percent of Americans admitted feeling bias against Muslims.

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